One thing that I have found when wanting to do a brain dump, that is, rapidly getting thoughts and ideas out of my head and into some tangible format, is that the tool for collecting these thoughts can’t get in the way.

I used to make this brain dump on paper because it was the most accessible and fast way of doing it, only to find that I had to then type all of it into the digital tool that I used to manage my day-to-day actions and projects.

So, since I’m a Things user and this is a Things blog, paper won’t cut it. I put together a way to rapidly enter to-dos into the Things inbox with my iPhone, Drafts, and Hazel.

If you don’t know what Drafts for iOS is or Hazel for Mac is, I suggest that you check them out. Drafts is basically a notepad that you can use to automate all kinds of things, like appending notes in Evernote, adding new files to Dropbox, convert Markdown to HTML formatted emails, among other way more amazing things. Hazel is a “rules” engine that let’s you automate moving of files, deleting files, renaming them, or even automagically sorting them into a new folder structure.

The Workflow

In a nutshell, the workflow looks like this:

Open Drafts on your iPhone, enter some lines of text into an empty Draft

Tap the Things Inbox Dump action in the Drafts action menu

Drafts then creates a new text file called ThingsInboxDump.txt in a folder in your Dropbox

Hazel sees that there is a new file called ThingsInboxDump.txt in your Dropbox folder and triggers the action to run an AppleScript

The AppleScript loops through each line item of the text file and creates a new to-do in Things’ Inbox

Hazel then moves the file to your Trash on your Mac

With this workflow in mind, let’s take the steps to build it with Drafts, Hazel, and AppleScript

Drafts Setup

Open Drafts on your iPhone and tap the Action Menu button in the top right.

Tap the + button in the top right. Then tap Create New Action.

In the Create New Action screen, name the action, give it a color and icon if you’d like.

Tap the Steps list item to add a new step to the action. Scroll down and tap the Dropbox step type. To make this work, make sure you have your Dropbox account set up in Draft’s settings.

Back on the Step screen, define the step by:

Giving it the filename of “ThingsInboxDump”

An extension of txt

The path to whatever folder you want to use in your Dropbox

Set the Write type to Create

Set the Content of the step to “[[draft]]”

The AppleScript

We will be using Things’ awesome AppleScripting features to automate this. Below is the code for parsing a text file, taking each line of the file and creating a new to-do in the Things Inbox:

hazelProcessFile()
on hazelProcessFile()
set ThingsList to paragraphs of (read POSIX file "/Users/cmsmith/Dropbox/Action/ThingsInboxDump.txt")
repeat with nextLine in ThingsList
if length of nextLine is greater than 0 then
tell application "Things"
set newToDo to make new to do with properties {name:nextLine} at the end of list "Inbox"
end tell
end if
end repeat
end hazelProcessFile

The line that contains the file path can be changed to your own Dropbox folder. Save this file as ThingsInboxDump.scpt.

The Hazel Rule

Open Hazel and add the folder that you are sending your ThingsInboxDump.txt file to. After that, select the folder and click the + button in the Rules list to add a new rule.

You’ll have a new Rule screen. Fill it in like below:

In the Name contains field, enter the whole name or portion of the file name that you are saving from Drafts. In the Run AppleScript action, find the AppleScript file you saved. In the Move to folder action, either select a folder (if you want to archive these for some reason) or just send the file to the Trash.

Running the Workflow

If everything is set up correctly, go to Drafts, type out some things you want to get into your Things’ inbox, and tap the Things Inbox Dump action that you created.

You should see something like this on your Mac after Hazel successfully runs the script:

After that, your new list of inbox items will be sitting comfortably in your Things Inbox.

Projects in Things are used to organize to-dos related to a specific outcome, like changing the oil on your car or submitting a report for work. We use the GTD way of defining a project: any outcome that requires more than one To-do (next action) to complete.

If you have a one-off to-do that doesn’t require several steps to complete, then you may want to add it to an over-arching Area of Responsibility.
Projects in Things are flat lists of to-dos. The project itself can have tags, a note, and a due date. Projects can be also made to be repeating (we will cover to-do and project repeats in another article).

Projects can then be organized by Area of Responsibility after they are created. Organizing them by Area of Responsibility is a great way to organize projects as well as identify which area of your life may need more attention or even to quickly see how overloaded you are.
Creating projects in Things is a simple process:

On Mac

There are three main ways to add a project in Things using your Mac.

At the bottom left of Things, click the + button and then click New Project.

Or, in the Things menu, click File > New Project.

Or you can create a new project with the keyboard shortcut ⇧⌘N from anywhere in Things. If you use the keyboard shortcut to create the project, the project will be automatically created in the list you have opened (the Projects list, an Area of Responsibilty, Someday, etc.)

On iPhone

On the iPhone, go to your projects list by tapping Projects.

On the Projects screen, tap the + button on the bottom left.

From there you can fill out the Title, Notes, pick Tags, and set a Due Date.

Further you can tap the Create In selector to select the list you want to create the project in.

On iPad

Creating projects on the iPad is very similar to the iPhone.

Go to your projects list by tapping Projects in the left sidebar. Then in the top right of the screen, tap the + button. From there you will get a popover where you can fill out the Title, Notes, pick Tags, and set a DueDate.

Further you can tap the Create In selector to select the list you want to create the project in.

Organizing Projects by Area of Responsibility

In the first article in this series, we took a look at how to create and organize your Areas of Responsibility in Things. After you have some Areas setup, you can use the Areas to organize your projects. For instance, if you have a project like “Get an oil change” you could set this Project’s Area to “Personal” or “Car Maintenance” depending on how granular your Areas are.

To set the Area for a project:

On Mac

Go to your project and drag and drop the project onto the Area of Responsibility that you want to move it to.

After this, you can click on the Area of Responsibility and see all of the projects in that particular Area.

On iOS

Go to your project list and tap on the gray arrow on the right side of the project:

Then tap on the Move list item under the Project:

On the Move screen, tap and select the Area that you want to move the Project to:

The reason we recommend sorting your Projects by Area of Responsibility is to create a better organization structure in Things. This can also help you gauge how busy you are in a certain Area of your life and if you need to create more projects or to-dos in another Area.

The Quick Way to Review Project Activity

Reviewing any productivity system regularly is an important to keep your actively working on projects and tasks. One of the cool built in features of the Things interface is the ability to quickly see how many to-dos are undone in a project.

On Mac or iOS, go to your Project List and you can easily see how many to-dos are left in the project:

On Mac

To the left of the project item, you can see how many to-dos are left in the project as well as a “status” bar of the completion of all of the to-dos:

On iOS

On iOS, the project has a label of how many to-dos are left in the project:

By using projects and Areas in Things, you can create a more nested structure and organize your projects any way that you’d like.

The best feature of Cultured Code’s Things is that it’s simple to use. It’s a straightforward to-do and project management application that doesn’t over-promise or under-deliver. It’s easy to get started with the application and work on your to-dos, sort by due date, plan projects, etc.

If you want to use Things more effectively and become more productive you can systemically setup Things to better support your workflow.

Disclaimer: this isn’t the “be-all-to-end-all” way to setup Things, it’s just the way that I have seen works the best for a consistent workflow that can handle a bunch of to-dos and projects.

Area of Responsibility best practices

One of the best ways to get started setting up your Things structure is to start with Areas of Responsibility. If you are a Getting Things Done nerd, then you have probably heard of this term, if not, Areas of Responsibility are the different, over-arching topics that you work in and play in life. For instance, work, home, family, finances, spirituality, organizations, etc. could be a good starter list of Areas of Responsibility.

The reason that we start with Areas of Responsibility when setting up Things is because by assigning whole Projects as well as infividual to-dos to an Area, you will be able to take a vertical view at your Next list. This will allow you to first filter out all of the to-dos that are related to work or home, and then further filter them.

If you are unsure of what Areas of Responsibility to start with, it would be good to at least start with a list like this:

Home

Work

Finances

Health and Vitality

Friends and Family

After that, you can add new ones as they come up in your life or if you have a single to-do or project that doesn’t necessarily fit in the ones you have.

To add new Area of Responsibility:

On Mac

At the bottom left of Things, click the + button and then click New Area of Responsibility.

Or, in Things’ menu, you can click File > New Area of Responsibility.

Your new Area of Responsibility will be added to Things and you can edit its name in the left sidebar and press Return to save.

On iPhone

On the iPhone, tap the Settings button in the bottom right of the Lists screen, then Manage Areas > New Area.

From there you can name your new Area of Responsibility. The tap the Save button.

On iPad

On the iPad, tap the Settings button in the top right of the of the Lists sidebar, then tap Manage Areas > New Area.

From there you can name your new Area of Responsibility. The tap the Save button.

Setting up tags in Areas

One of the features that is a bit lacking in Things is the way to filter your to-dos when you are actually trying to get stuff done. There is a “trick” you can use on the Mac to be able to add a bit more structure and filtering capabilities to your lists: adding a tag to an Area of Responsibility.

For instance, say you have a bunch of to-dos that you can do on your Mac. These to-dos could be work related, finances related, home/personal related, etc. With setting up tags to be linked to an Area of Responsibility, this gives you an added “dimension” of filtering.

We recommend setting up your Area of Responsibility tags in their own group like so under a parent tag of AoR (for Area of Responsibility):

Each tag corresponds to an Areas of Responsibility:

And each tag is added to settings for the Area of Responsibility. You can manage your Areas of Responsibility by clicking the small cog icon in the bottom right of the left sidebar on Things for Mac:

Now, when you are looking at your Next list on the Mac, you can choose multiple tags to filter your list by holding the command key (⌘) and clicking on the tag. This will allow you to see all of the to-dos that are associated with an Area of Responsibility as well as any other tag filter you’d like.

Using Areas as single to-do lists

Another use of an Area is to use it as a single to-do list. What you can do is assign a to-do to an Area rather than a project if the next thing to be done only takes one step (like watering your plant, or paying a bill online). We like to consider these types of to-do “maintenance to-dos” as well as single to-dos. You can even setup repeating to-dos under Areas.

Using Areas as large projects

Another useful way to use Areas as a placeholder for larger projects. You might find that a simple project list for the majority of your projects may suffice, but if you have a large projects with several moving parts and sub-projects, you may want to consider using an Area to house all of these related project lists.

Areas of Responsibility in Things are a great way to setup the base structure of your system. With this base structure of Areas, it’s much easier to categorize and organize your projects and to-dos.

One of the best ways to speed up the use of any application, including Things, is to learn and use keyboard shortcuts. Luckily, Cultured Code has created a great PDF to outline all of Things shortcuts. These shortcuts include different ways to navigate, sort, and edit your tasks.

Although this document is great, one of my favorite shortcuts is missing, ⇧⌘F when you have a to-do selected. This gives you a nice “filing menu” where you can choose the Area of Responsibility or Project you’d like to move the to-do to.

Cultured Code’s Things application is a powerful task manager and works well with productivity systems like Getting Things Done. One of the key features and paradigms that Things prides itself on is its simplicity and being able to get started using the system to be productive right away.

But, is Things too simple for a super busy professional or someone that has taken productivity to a “blackbelt” level? Let’s find out.

Project Management

Things and other applications like it (OmniFocus, Todoist, Toodledo, etc.) aren’t what a “professional” would consider a project management system to be. Most “professionals” and PMPs (project management professionals) consider the apex of project management apps to be something that can produce a GANTT chart or show you a critical path. These consist of apps like Microsoft Project, or for the Mac, OmniPlan. These applications produce extremely detailed project plans that show resource utilization, days and times that a task should be done, blocking of tasks and resources that can produce bottlenecks and more. While these can be valuable, project planning that is this granular rarely works for someone that is personally trying to become more productive.

What Things offers is a much simpler version of project management. Users can create a Project and have a list of to-dos linked to the project. It’s a flatlist with no hierarchy or dependent sections, but it gives the user a a clear view of exactly the next action that they should take. The user can then give each to-do one or multiple tags so they can see these actions in a different way that can allow batching of to-dos later.

Detailed project plans are very useful, especially for large and complicated projects, but Things can offer a personal look into exactly what you need to do at a more detailed level while the project is moving forward.

Tags

Using the tagging feature in Things can give you a completely different perspective on your to-dos. Because Things allows you to assign multiple tags to a to-do, Area of Focus, or project, you can slice-and-dice your project and to-dos in a way that works for you.

I tend to use tags as contexts in the GTD sense of the term (a phsyical location or set of tools that are needed to complete a task) and assign them to individual to-dos. But I also use tags as a way to filter my Area of Focus inside of Things. I assign a tag to a specific Area of Focus and then filter my to-dos by Area first and then by context. This allows me to see all tasks that I can do at a computer that are for work, or all calls I need to make for personal reasons. It’s a two-phase approach of filtering and dicing up my to-dos to see the right list at the right time, allowing me to concentrate on the tasks I can do when and where I am.

We will show you how to assign tags to Areas as well as to-dos and then see the to-dos based on what you actually can and want to work on.

Areas

Areas are a special type of list in Things. I like to think that they coincide with David Allen’s GTD terminology for “Areas of Focus”. Areas of Focus are higher levels areas of life that we are responsible for like our jobs, families, finances, spirituality, personal organizations, etc. These tend to be perceived “higher” than our project lists and are never completely “done”. What I mean by that is that Areas are something in our lives that we need to constantly pay attention to that will allow us to be whole. I know that this is deep, but bare with me.

Like I said, Areas are a special list in Things; you can assign to-dos as well as projects to areas. With this, you can group all of your projects and single item to-dos (to-dos that don’t go with a certain project but belong to a certain area of your life) in a single list. So, you can have all your work projects and single to-dos, personal projects and single to-dos, etc. in one list to review or work from. This allows you to look at your to-dos and projects at a different level and perspective than the Next, Today, and Projects lists.

Just because Things looks simple and is easy to start using write away doesn’t mean that it isn’t capable. Sometimes simplicity is exactly what you need to make a productivity system useful and long lasting. I manage over 70 projects in Things and feel that its “simplicity” is a great feature to ensure that I’m getting the right things done at the right time.

We will explore more of the features of Things in later articles that show that Things is completely capable of handling a complex work load and built to help you manage it.